In preparation for Dungeon World, I’m going to bring at least one adventure for a 2 hour time slot. So this weekend, I began my preparation.

I decided to take this opportunity to review several of my old D&D 1E adventures. For the most part, these are adventures that I have not played in and have only recently acquired – traded for within the last 3 years. I’m likely going to convert one of these adventures.

The first adventure I pulled off the shelf was A1 – Slave Pits of the Undercity. It was originally designed for GenCon XIII (1980) tournament play. I figured that would be a great start for reading.

The first section of the adventure is a very linear dungeon crawl, and felt very inappropriate for Dungeon World. It was specifically designed for tournament play using D&D; Many of the set pieces were tightly dependent on the D&D rules.

One thing that turned me immediately off was the extremely linear map. Dungeon World is about playing to find out what happens – exploration. And plodding through a linear map is the anti-thesis of exploration.

Kingdom of Ghouls – Dungeon Magazine #70

For a brief moment, I flirted with converting this adventure. But quickly realized the scope of the adventure is too grand in scope to properly convey in a 2 hour time slot. That said, I may still consider a micro-conversion.

I picked this up a month ago, and had yet to read it. I have heard numerous tales of the Moathouse, so I figured I’d give it a read through.

I love it.

It has a narrow-broad-narrow dungeon design, that is to see the front door is easy to find then things open up, but ultimately steer you towards the “exit.” There is room for exploration without loosing site of the final goal.

The random encounters feel very much like the soft moves described in Dungeon World – some are noises in the distances, others are monsters revealed.

There is more than one thing going on within the Moathouse, not quite factions, but certainly a handful of overlapping themes. Each of the rooms provides

B2 – Keep on the Borderlands

With Wizards of the Coast releasing the Caves of Chaos for the D&D Next playtest, I thought “Well maybe I should spin this through the Dungeon World centrifuge.” For a 2 hour time slot, this looks like there are too many rooms to account for.

Observations

In reading these old modules, it becomes clear that exploration and clever play is at the fore front of earlier incarnations of D&D. The adventures are extremely compact, with little space devoted to each room. D&D 3.5 and 4E adventures change their focus and instead worry about creating “memorable” set pieces – placing monsters and hazards within a room.

Yes those conflicts are memorable, but as a whole can feel disjoint. Contrast this with an older adventure, where the dungeon is the set piece. Implied motion permeates the adventures – random encounters and alerting other areas – and as such the concept of a single room having a combat map is somewhat absurd.

In reading the adventures, it is clear that the adventures reward smart play. If you tip off the monsters that there is a strong force attacking, they flee, taking their treasure with them. Or if you may choose to carefully explore a tangential place in hopes of grand treasure. And remember, in older versions of D&D, XP primarily comes from treasure not slain monsters.

Old D&D rewards the “leave no stone unturned, so long as your turn it over carefully” kind of play. Very different from the slash your way to victory that I have seen in so many later incarnations.

Even the texts of the adventures encourage exploration by the DM. There are subtle environmental cues – a greased door, a barrel of vinegar – that tell a larger story, but only if the DM explores those relations. These old modules have a minimalist approach with subtle flavors and textures.